Shopping Saturday: A Back to the Future Fall

From the Portsmouth Daily Times, September 30, 1915

     Kilbourne Smith, Sr, who is about 83 years of age, suffered a bad fall in front of the Canter grocery about four o’clock Wednesday afternoon.  He was sitting on a barrel when it broke in, the aged man falling to the cement sidewalk,  A gas was cut over his eye.  Henry Hans, in his automobile, moved him to the home of his daughter, Mrs. Orin Smedley, of Stewartsville.

Now, I’m not sayin’ it actually happened like this, but it could have…

Old Grampa Smith was sitting there in his usual spot outside of the grocery store.  Maybe smoking a pipe (that’s how I like to think of my husband’s 2^nd great grandfather- smoking a pipe).  Just sitting there gazing across the street.

I can’t show you a picture of Canter grocery because now it’s a Century 21 real estate office, but even by the front of the Century 21, you can see that it could be a cozy place to sit.  If there were barrels.

But here is what I’m thinking…  Grampa Smith was sitting there, pipe-smoking his own business, when suddenly, there was a flash from the future.  The space-time continuum became twisted and contorted, because, you see, across the street from the Canter grocery, a mere 2 generations later was... a comic book shop. 

I’m guessing that as Grampa Smith gazed through the pipe smoke the building flashed and changed momentarily.  Donning Superman and Batman standees.  Flashing neon advertising of an upcoming signing.  That sort of thing.  Because Grampa Smith is related to Husband Marc, he saw it; just as Husband Marc can smell a comic book shop or Toys R Us with his eyes closed and guide us there in the dark.   

And the oddity of it overwhelmed Grampa and he startled.  The barrel, old and warn from his years of rocking and smoking on it, became unhinged and… plop to the ground.

All for a comic book shop.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.